Propleopus
| Propleopus Temporal range: Pliocene - Pleistocene
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| Diagram of the holotype of P. oscillans | |
Scientific classification 
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| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Infraclass: | Marsupialia |
| Order: | Diprotodontia |
| Family: | Hypsiprymnodontidae |
| Genus: | †Propleopus Longman, 1924[1] |
| Type species | |
| Triclis oscillans | |
| Species[2] | |
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Propleopus is an extinct genus of marsupials. The genus contains three species: P. chillagoensis from the Plio-Pleistocene, and P. oscillans and P. wellingtonensis from the Pleistocene.[4]
Discovery and naming
[edit]The type species Propleopus oscillans was first named under the genus Triclis by Charles Walter De Vis in 1888.[3] Because the German entomologist Hermann Loew had already named the genus Triclis for a robber fly in 1851, Albert Heber Longman named a replacement name Propleopus in 1924, combining the prefix pró (πρό, 'before') with pleopus, the latter in reference to the junior synonym of Hypsiprymnodon moschatus: Pleopus nudicaudatus named by Richard Owen in 1877.[1] In 1978 and 1985, Archer and colleagues named two more species, P. chillagoensis and P. wellingtonensis, and provided a taxonomic revision of the genus.[2]
Description
[edit]
In contrast to most other kangaroos, and similar to their small extant relative, the musky rat-kangaroo, they were probably omnivorous and quadrupedal.[5] Propleopus is estimated to have weighed around 35.5–47.1 kilograms (78–104 lb).[6]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Longman, Heber A. (1924). "Some Queensland fossil vertebrates". Memoirs of the Queensland Museum. 8: 16–28.
- ^ a b Archer, M.; Flannery, T. (1985). "Revision of the Extinct Gigantic Rat Kangaroos (Potoroidae: Marsupialia), with Description of a New Miocene Genus and Species and a New Pleistocene Species of Propleopus". Journal of Paleontology. 59 (6): 1331–1349. ISSN 0022-3360. JSTOR 1304948.
- ^ a b De Vis, C.W. (1888). "On an extinct genus of the marsupials allied to Hypsiprymnodon". Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales. 13. Linnean Society of New South Wales.: 5–8.
- ^ Wroe, S. (1996). "An Investigation of Phylogeny in the Giant Extinct Rat Kangaroo Ekaltadeta (Propleopinae, Potoroidae, Marsupialia)". Journal of Paleontology. 70 (4): 681–690. Bibcode:1996JPal...70..681W. doi:10.1017/S0022336000023635. ISSN 0022-3360. JSTOR 1306529. S2CID 86211685.
- ^ Ride, W.D.L.; Pridmore, P.A.; Barwick, R.E.; Wells, R.T.; Heady, R.D. (1997). "Towards a Biology of Propleopus oscillans (Marsupialia: Propleopinae, Hypsiprymnodontidae)". Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales. 117: 243–326.
- ^ Wroe, S.; Argot, C.; Dickman, C (2004). "On the rarity of big fierce carnivores and primacy of isolation and area: tracking large mammalian carnivore diversity on two isolated continents". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 271 (1544): 1203–1211. doi:10.1098/rspb.2004.2694.
- John A. Long et al.: Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2003, ISBN 0-8018-7223-5.
- "Propleopus (Genus)". ZipcodeZoo.com. Archived from the original on 2012-01-26.
- THE GIANT RAT-KANGAROO PROPLEOPUS OSCILLANS (DE VIS)[permanent dead link]
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